Police find babies sold by Bulgarian ring

PARIS, Oct 18 (AFP) - French police Tuesday found at least five babies sold by a Bulgarian ring and arrested several French couples who lied to adopt them.

PARIS, Oct 18 (AFP) - French police Tuesday found at least five babies sold by a Bulgarian ring and arrested several French couples who lied to adopt them.

The infants, all aged around 18 months, were discovered in the Paris area and in other parts of France.

They had allegedly been "bought" by the couples for between EUR 5,000 and 6,000.

Officers said they busted the baby-trafficking network after a long investigation with Bulgarian authorities started in July last year, when a Bulgarian woman lodged a criminal complaint in her country for kidnapping.

A Bulgarian family was believed to head up the ring, finding pregnant young women of poor background in Bulgaria and offering them between EUR 400 and 1,000 to give birth in France and hand the baby over to the couples.

According to officers, either the women gave birth under their own name and the man in the couple had himself put down on the birth certificate as the father, or she used the identity of the woman in the adoptive couple at the hospital.

Some of the Bulgarian women prostituted themselves in France before or after the birth.

A children's court judge is to decide whether the infants should be returned to the adoptive couples, with orders to ensure their education, or whether they should be placed in different foster families.